NICOLA Sturgeon went back to the future after returning to her home town to explain her determination to change her country.

The Deputy First Minister says the impact of Thatcherism on Irvine inspired her career in politics and believes independence could transform the town – and others like it all over Scotland.

Sturgeon invited the Sunday Mail into her parents’ home on the outskirts of the Ayrshire town, where around 40,000 people live.

She grew up in a terraced house in Dreghorn, two miles outside Irvine, with her parents Robin and Joan and younger sister Gillian.

Sturgeon, 43, revealed how the industrial destruction and soaring unemployment in the 1980s shaped her politics.

The leader of the SNP’s referendum campaign said: “Irvine, in many ways, motivated me to support independence. Growing up, I felt the sense of disempowerment that came from having a Tory Government we didn’t vote for.

“When I was at Greenwood ­Academy, unemployment was very high and I was acutely aware of a sense of hopelessness among a lot of people I was at school with. They would leave school and, through no fault of their own, not go on to do well.

“There was also very strong fear, particularly among my dad’s generation, that if you lost your job, you might be unemployed for the rest of your life.

“What played on me then, and is still the motivation for my politics today, is that we had a right-wing, uncaring Tory Government that we didn’t vote for doing significant damage to the fabric of our society. That just seemed wrong to me.

“It remains at the heart of what I do now. We should get governments that we vote for – not governments we reject.”

Irvine was mentioned in The Proclaimers’ 1987 hit single Letter From America, about Scots emigrating because of the economic recession at home.

The song, which reached No3 in the singles chart, featured the lyrics: “Bathgate no more, ­Linwood no more, Methil no more, Irvine no more.”

Sturgeon said: “There was no single cataclysmic event in Irvine, as was the case in Bathgate, Methil and Linwood. You would have to ask The Proclaimers’ Craig and Charlie Reid what merited the inclusion of Irvine. But like many places in Scotland, Irvine was badly hit by Thatcherism.”

Letter From America became a firm favourite of Sturgeon’s.

She said: “There was a perverse pride that my home town was mentioned in a successful pop song.

“But it also solidified the feeling I had – which took me into politics – that things weren’t as they should be and places like Irvine should be doing much better.

“There was a sense of the damage being done and the song reflected that.

“For someone like me, who was young and becoming active in politics, it became a political anthem. I drove my mum and dad mad playing it constantly.”

Like many youngsters from Ayrshire, the Magnum Leisure Centre became the focal point of Sturgeon’s social life.

She said: “The big thing to do was Frosty’s ice disco at the Magnum. I went there every Saturday night and it was great fun.”

She drank at a nearby pub after turning 18. “The Ship Inn was my favourite haunt in my late teens,” she said.

The Magnum is to be demolished and rebuilt while Sturgeon’s old school, Dreghorn Primary, is set to be turned into a saki distillery. She said: “There are a lot of good things happening in Irvine just now and independence offers the chance to intensify and accelerate that.

“It will bring tangible benefits but my belief in it is as much about the sense of being in charge of your own destiny.

“It is empowerment, the feeling that we are responsible, accountable and capable of making our own decisions.”

Sturgeon said: “Independence offers economic powers to incentivise different parts of the economy to create jobs in towns like Irvine.

“There are not any magic wands but independence can allow you to decide what kind of economy you want and a welfare system that tackles poverty rather than entrenches it and makes it worse.”

Sturgeon joined the SNP at 16 and campaigned for near-neighbour Kay Ullrich in her fight for the Cunninghame South seat at the 1987 General Election.

She said: “We came fourth and I was devastated. It was my first lesson in electoral defeat – though not my last.

“But there were positives from the election. It was the election in which Alex Salmond was first elected.”

Nicola Sturgeon from her days at Greenwood Academy.

The Tories gained control in 1987 but, in Scotland, they won just 10 of the country’s 72 seats. Sturgeon said: “Scotland overwhelmingly rejected Margaret Thatcher yet we had a Tory Government doing a lot of social and industrial damage to the country.

“Why should we be at the mercy of how people down south vote?

“In every general election in my lifetime, Labour have won the most seats in Scotland. Yet, in many of those elections, we have ended up with a Tory prime minister.

“There is a subversion of democracy in that which I don’t think is acceptable.”

Sturgeon left Ayrshire to study law at Glasgow University. She then worked as a solicitor at the Drumchapel Law Centre in Glasgow before becoming an MSP.

She said that despite her keen interest in politics, she had no expectations of her having a full-time career in politics.

Sturgeon added: “There was great jubilation at the first constituency party meeting I went to because the SNP had gone into double figures in the opinion polls.

“I stood in Glasgow Shettleston in the 1992 General Election and was never going to come close to winning, although in my youthful optimism, I thought there was a chance.”

Sturgeon lost out again in 1997, coming second to Mohammad Sarwar in Glasgow Govan but, two years later, she was elected to the Scottish Parliament. In 2004, she was elected deputy leader of the SNP and, three years later, became Deputy First Minister when the SNP swept to power.

Salmond has vowed to stand again for First Minister in 2016 but Sturgeon admits she still wants to run the country.

She said: “I don’t like politicians saying they have no ambition to be leader when you know they’re fibbing through their teeth.

“But equally, I don’t sit and hanker after being First Minister. I have been so fortunate. When I first became involved in politics, I thought the idea of being a full-time politician was wishful thinking.

“So, if I never do anything else in politics, I’ve done much more than I ever dreamed as a teenager campaigning in Irvine all those years ago.”

Sturgeon, who is married to SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, lives in Glasgow and works in Edinburgh.

But she remains in touch with school friends through Facebook and regularly visits her parents.